Lucky Strike
by Echante
Summary: Addison receives two phone calls one night, two minutes apart. One from Derek, and then one from Mark.


If anybody ever needs to prove that I belong in a mental institution, they can reference this story. Seriously. Oh and about the first part, this always kills me. The Apocalypse is when all the believers go to heaven, not when the world ends. The end of the world is called Armageddon, and is supposed to happen seven years later. Everybody gets this wrong! End of rant.

XXXXXX

In my defense, it wasn't something I planned on doing. In fact, that applies to all the events that took place that day. Though, I guess that could apply to all the events that have happened in my life since I met Derek and Mark. In our tiny little island, where the three of us resided, our meeting day, was our own little Apocalypse and now, nineteen years later, instead of the prophesied seven, we have reached the Armageddon. I was the one, who made it go **BOOM**.

XXXXXX

I received two phone calls on that day. Two minutes apart. It still scares me how much they act in sync.

There was a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes on my bed and a pack of American Eagles next to it. I haven't smoked in twenty-five years, and neither of them knew that I ever did. They each think they know me thoroughly, completely. They only know what they want to know. They've painted their own portrait of me. They're both self-absorbed sons-of-bitches.

There's dark yellow light in the room, and I grabbed the Lucky Strikes, preparing myself for whatever was coming. The shadows between bedposts become more dominant, and the white noise in the room turned dramatic. The smoke stirred before my eyes and sure enough, through the haze, the phone rings in my destiny. I hadn't known it then, but the inevitable had just occurred.

"Hello?" I spoke into the receiver, I knew who he was but I had a disturbing need to pretend I'd forgotten him.

"Addy?" He slurred my name familiarly. It brings back distant memories; they dust around the margins of my mind and dance in smoke. It's been awhile since he called me drunk.

"What." I snap at him. I can see him drawing back; I had to make sure he was a little afraid of me. You can't have these boys demanding from you whatever they feel like; you have to establish a certain amount of fear.

"Sorry to bot… bother you…" he stutters. I smile.

"Yup." I stay in character; I'm kind of having fun, "I'm sorry you're bothering me too."

"Can you come over?" He launches straight into it, and I'm surprised by his audacity.

"No." I figure I'll deny him; it's more fun that way.

"Addy." He's whining now, there have always been certain times when Derek reminded me of a school girl.

"Derek." I mirror sarcastically.

"Addison." He repeats, "come on over! Please? I need you!"

"Did your kindergartner break-up with you?"

"Yes."

I paused. That hadn't been foreseen. I was being sarcastic. "Oh…" now I'm stammering, "I see…"

"Please…"

"Fine. I'll come over. But give me at least an hour and a half."

"Thank you!" He's so goddamn desperate that I kind of hate myself.

"Bye Derek."

"Bye." The dial tone kind of kills me. It's fucking nasty.

I'd just set down the phone when it rings again. I sigh. I ready myself for a repeat conversation.

"Hi Mark." I sigh. It's going to be a long night.

XXXXXX

The darkness is all encompassing; tonight it seems that it's become a part of the show, the backdrop for the end of it all. It's a character now; I've endowed it with powers. The trailer shines grey in all of its glory. I rather resent it still, the memories here are not fond. I remember the knocking sound my fist would make against the steel door, back when our marriage was not secure enough for me to simply walk in. I hated being a visitor in my own home. But it seems fitting that this is the way things should end.

He's staring at a bottle of Guinness when I walk in, there's something haunting about it; almost maniacal. It rotates slowly against his palm; his thumb lingers over its cool bottle-glass neck. There's a riffle next to the door, I don't remember him having one. I might ask him about it later.

"Hi." I say the words softly, he's fragile like this. He was always so fucking melodramatic.

"I've missed you." He whispers softly, slurring.

"Sure." I snort, "right."

His eyes widen and round, puppy-like, the bastard, "Seriously!" He pleads, "Really Addison I have."

I take pity on him somewhat; it must suck to be dumped by the love of your life, "okay." It's not an agreement, but at least I didn't shoot him down.

"You're a fucking masochist." I tell him, "You know that?"

"I'm not!" Again with the whining. I married a woman.

"You are," I say laughing, I need a goddamn cigarette, "You always make these things bigger than they are."

"_I_" he says all self-righteously, I hate the bastard a lot right now, "can feel things. Unlike you, Ice-Queen, Satan's whore." He's really on a roll; Derek's insults get stupider and stupider with his level of intoxication.

I really couldn't take it anymore, I rummage through my purse. He's curious all-the-sudden, his eyes soften and crinkle, his mouth purses, "What are you looking for?" is his question.

"My cigarettes," I mumble.

"You smoke?"

I sigh and pause, how to explain it? "Off-and-on." I finally settle on.

"Huh." The confused look is on his face now.

The smoke fills his trailer and he looks mildly disgusted, "Don't do that." He complains.

"Why not?"

"You'll stink up my house."

"Deal with it."

"I think we should have sex." He switches the subject on me so abruptly that I was caught off guard.

"What?" I hiss at him, "No!"

"I think it's the perfect solution." He's being logical now, I wonder at which point he decided that this would be a turn-on.

"For whose problem? I think it's just yours."

"No… you're horny too."

"What?" I shriek, perhaps a little too loudly.

"You're irritated, you yell a lot." And at this point I'm reminded that he knows me. I'm reminded of the level of intimacy that the two of us had shared, even the three of us, I remember that it was so all encompassing, so deeply entrenched in me that he could read some of the signs that I didn't even mean to put out.

"Fine." I say to him, tossing my cigarette to the side, "But you're lucky tonight."

"Really?" he asks me as he moves in, my top already off by my own hands, "I don't think luck has much to do with it."

"Oh really?"

"I think you realized that you belong here, that there's a force that drags you here to me."

"No… that would be to Mark."

He flinches at the mention of Mark's name and for a moment I think he's going to slap me. Instead, he pauses for the briefest of beats and smiles, "Well then," he says, "I guess it _was_ luck."

"Yessir." I tell him, "You are one lucky guy."

When he enters me, I feel half-complete, there's something missing, something melancholy that I can't quite place.

"It ends tonight." I whisper against him as I come. Luckily he's too busy with his own high to bother to analyze my crazy utterances. But as it turns out, luck had nothing to do with it.

XXXXXX

He's sitting on a hammock strung up on his make-shift porch and there's beauty in him, he glows effervescent. His riffle does some kind of seduction number on me; my hand reaches out to trace its edges. Why does he leave it laying out here? I wonder. I pick it up and judge its weight. I glace over slightly, but Derek is still staring into the nothingness. The darkness consumes his gaze. The whole scene before me feels so goddamn phony; Derek is a goddamn phony I realize. I wonder if the thing is loaded. I grab a cigarette and toss the rest of the pack aside. The smoke helps to reassure me. I know what I have to do.

"Hey Derek." I yell over. He doesn't turn around.

"Wha…" he grunts the half-word. It kind of pisses me off.

I cock the riffle and aim it, saying one more time, "Derek!"

He still doesn't turn around and I hesitate, what if I miss? What if there are no bullets in the gun? Then I'll look like an idiot and the whole thing goes to waste.

I panic and look around. Then, like a cold breeze through a summer day I am rejuvenated, my eyes fall to the ground and glorified right next to me were the words "Lucky Strike." Goddamn. I yell his name one more time and this time he turns around. His eyes widen. The trigger is pulled and then… silence.

The world is cold.

The darkness only gets darker because the stars have left the sky.

XXXXXX

"Hello? Mark?" She says it into her cell-phone, the insanity leaving her breathless.

"Addison?" His voice is rugged, manly and she shivers, it does something to her, really, it does.

"I'm coming over."

"It's about time." Sometimes, she thinks, Mark can be so goddamn self-righteous, really he can.

"Okay." Is all she says in reply and then hangs up. She imagines that no one can see her in the darkness. In the dark, she reasons, she's invisible.

She knocks on his door in the same pattern that she knocks on Derek's, it would have been much simpler to just take him out, in the hallway, but she kind of wants the taste of his breathe one last time, she wants to feel him inside her just to remember what it is like. So she stashes the riffle in her room across the hall and knocks on his door.

When it opens, she kisses him, no need for formalities, she thinks. She doesn't want to waste precious time talking, dawn is coming soon and she would like this over and done. He's gentle, loving even and she's impatient the whole time. Her mind urges him on. "Faster." She hisses. "Damn it faster."

He obliges. That's the good thing about Mark, he does what she asks.

"That was amazing." He tells her when it's through. She just grunts. "I'll be right back." She whispers against his lips and slips away towards the hall.

The second kill is quick and merciless. She does it in cold blood and then walks down to the hotel lobby and buys herself a second pack of Lucky Strikes. She walks back up the stairs and settles into Mark's room. "I love ya baby." She tells his corpse, and then lies beside him, curls up to his chest laughing. "You're so much prettier when you shut-up." She tells him. She kisses the spot where the bullet pierced through his heart. And then…

Then comes darkness.

XXXXXX

"Well we have pretty convincing evidence. I mean… it's almost not even worth getting her a lawyer."

"This broad is crazy. She killed her ex-husband and then, from what we gather, her ex-lover in the same night. Seems convincing that she slept with both too."

"Well she's admitted it. I think she has a shot for the insanity plea…"

"Yeah. Me too."

"You know what's interesting?"

"What?"

"At both crime scenes, they found a box of Lucky Strikes."

"So…"

"So she had a pack of American Eagles lying there, right on her bed but they're untouched."

"So what's it to ya? The woman has loyalty."

"Huh… maybe. Perfect shots to the head both of them…"

The cop turns around, "come on honey," he says to the woman in handcuffs, "you're coming with us."

She smiles and winks at the other guy, "what can I say," she laughs, "they were both just lucky strikes."

XXXXXX

Now bring on the hate mail. Actually this was based on a line from a Jennifer Aniston movie called The Good Girl where she's talking to Jake Gyllenhaal's character and she's like, "still don't see why a goddamn maniac don't go git a gun and shoot everyone to pieces." Which strangely enough totally gave me this idea. Review please!


End file.
